Pete,
We actually did three.
One like the Hello Dolly with 9 openings, the other two with 4 similar to the other 5 opening style that Strasburg has. 4 wouldn’t work with the mfg build of the car. Now my grandson has a total of 10 Strasburg cars.
Jim, I repainted three MTH cars, two were PRR one was Long Island and the three had Tuscan paint that was very close if not the same as the single MTH Strasburg baggage car I had. Highball Graphics will make the decals. HO decals are a stock item but he will make O scale decals upon request. Tru Color 211 SP Freight Car red is very close.
I only have a Mogul so 5 cars, including my Labelle Observation, will do me.
Here are my other two.
Pete
Good Afternoon Everyone,
Here is an MTH National Car Co 40' steel reefer that I custom painted and lettered for my cancer doctor, Dr David Brodland. Zitelli & Brodland is the name of their practice MOHS is the specific type of skin cancer surgery they do and 1987 is the year their practice was started. I stuffed & mounted the car on a piece of Gargraves track which was screwed onto a piece of red oak that I stained/clearcoated. I finished off the display with a couple of Lionel track bumpers. All the lettering on the car is dry transfers that were individually applied.
And now the rest of the story. From birth I had a semi round reddish area on my upper back-right shoulder area-never any problems. Then some years back the area started to expand. Scheduled an appointment with Dr Brodland who did a biopsy and we discovered it was squamous cell cancer-fortunately not melanoma. However the cancerous area turned out to be much larger than the reddish surface. Ended up having about a 5 inch square area removed from my upper right shoulder area. It took a long time to heal and skin over but the cancer is gone from that area. Doc still takes little bites of me in other areas when I go in for checkups. It should be noted I have red hair(well, some red hair left-LOL), Casper white skin with abundant freckles. Sorry for the long winded post.
@VinceL posted:Here are a couple of unique items:
This is a Weaver REA car. Notice the fine print on the lower right: Return to Agent Mt. Lakes, NJ
When I lived in NJ, the Train Station in Mt. Lakes was my primary train store. Don Shaw was a big Lackawanna fan. I don't know for sure, but I suspect this item was made for the Train Station.
Def. made for the Train Station
Well I have a car that may be rare (or not) but it is certainly unusual, in fact I have never seen one before. It is Lionel and a normally routine gondola from the "made in China" era in the early 2000's. This one was made by Lionel in 2004 however it is not listed or mentioned in the Greenberg pricing guides covering that year.
It is a "Texas Mexican Railway" gondola and here she is:
The Texas Mexican Railway was (and still is) real, it was a short-line that extended from Corpus Christi (TX) to the Texas Mexican Railway Bridge in Laredo (TX). About 150 or so miles. It was started in 1875 and lasted as a independent subsidiary (of KCS) until about 2005. It is now part of the Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) network and still in use. Given this current ownership, it is part of the only railroad that covers Canada, United States and Mexico. The logo on the gondola is in fact the logo of the actual railway.
I was told by the seller that he thought this came as part of a set but didn't know any details. I have no information, in fact at first, I thought it was a custom mod but no, it has "built by Lionel" in the stamped livery and "Made by Lionel LLC" pressed into the bottom / underside of the gondola bin. I can find no listing for it in any of my Lionel references. It was not expensive and I brought it home from the weekend train show mostly for curiosity sake and to post here on this thread.
Any information by anyone much appreciated
Don
Early K-Line cars from between 1985 and 1988. These were all American made from the Marx "Deluxe" plastic car tooling.
More early K-Line (American made) from Marx tooling. The Illinois Central depressed center flat car is rare.
@Don McErlean posted:Well I have a car that may be rare (or not) but it is certainly unusual, in fact I have never seen one before. It is Lionel and a normally routine gondola from the "made in China" era in the early 2000's. This one was made by Lionel in 2004 however it is not listed or mentioned in the Greenberg pricing guides covering that year.
It is a "Texas Mexican Railway" gondola and here she is:
The Texas Mexican Railway was (and still is) real, it was a short-line that extended from Corpus Christi (TX) to the Texas Mexican Railway Bridge in Laredo (TX). About 150 or so miles. It was started in 1875 and lasted as a independent subsidiary (of KCS) until about 2005. It is now part of the Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) network and still in use. Given this current ownership, it is part of the only railroad that covers Canada, United States and Mexico. The logo on the gondola is in fact the logo of the actual railway.
I was told by the seller that he thought this came as part of a set but didn't know any details. I have no information, in fact at first, I thought it was a custom mod but no, it has "built by Lionel" in the stamped livery and "Made by Lionel LLC" pressed into the bottom / underside of the gondola bin. I can find no listing for it in any of my Lionel references. It was not expensive and I brought it home from the weekend train show mostly for curiosity sake and to post here on this thread.
Any information by anyone much appreciated
Don
The haul from that train show just keeps getting better. Definitely worth the trip.
@coach joe- You are right Joe and I don't have to pay "shipping"!
@cbq9911a - You are right, those are clearly made from Marx "deluxe" plastic car molds, but what a beautiful job Kline did. Boy I wish they had stayed around, those are really neat box cars and would work well on many layouts (including mine) today and they were normally available at economical prices. You can see the "circle" in your picture of the end bulkhead on the box car that would have held the "Marx" logo and is now replaced with the Kline logo. Neat cars.
All the Best
Don
@Don McErlean posted:Well I have a car that may be rare (or not) but it is certainly unusual, in fact I have never seen one before. It is Lionel and a normally routine gondola from the "made in China" era in the early 2000's. This one was made by Lionel in 2004 however it is not listed or mentioned in the Greenberg pricing guides covering that year.
I was told by the seller that he thought this came as part of a set but didn't know any details. I have no information, in fact at first, I thought it was a custom mod but no, it has "built by Lionel" in the stamped livery and "Made by Lionel LLC" pressed into the bottom / underside of the gondola bin. I can find no listing for it in any of my Lionel references. It was not expensive and I brought it home from the weekend train show mostly for curiosity sake and to post here on this thread.
Any information by anyone much appreciated
This car was part of an uncataloged set no. 31983 Southwest Freight Set that was sold by Hobby Lobby in 2004. Pretty odd that someone at Lionel picked this offbeat rail line for a car! No doubt it was an inexpensive set and there aren't many of these cars left around, at least partly because, given the source, many of them were probably discarded as the young owners trashed them or lost interest. The car is probably pretty rare, and certainly unusual.
By the way, the "Made in China" era is still with us. 
@breezinup - THANK YOU for the information. Your data matches what the seller told me, although he did not have the details. I can see why Lionel may have picked this obscure Railway, Hobby Lobby is fairly big here in central Texas and this railway is sort of local. Interesting choice however. Thanks again for taking the time to respond and providing the information.
Yes after I posted my response, I sort of realized that the "Made in China" era is still with us, unfortunately. My history goes back to the 1940's and I was born and lived in Bloomfield, N.J. not far from the Irvington Lionel Plant, where they made all the trains at that time.
Best Wishes
Don
Here is a one of the kind, home painted Union Pacific port hole Lionel caboose.
Charlie
@Choo Choo Charlie posted:Here is a one of the kind, home painted Union Pacific port hole Lionel caboose.
Charlie
Charlie - from someone who loves custom cabeese ( see One of a Kind Cabooses (Cabeese?) (warrenvillerailroad.com) , I love your creation - how did you paint it and get the red grabrails so perfect?
Marx deluxe caboose custom painted as Union Pacific CA-3 caboose 3786. This caboose is preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum and is a regular part of caboose trains. LED markers are Evan's Designs.
John
Thanks for comment. I masked some off with Scotch semi-sticky Magic tape and painted by hand with brushes for this caboose. It was done when I was in a "make colorful caboose phase", in winter of 2021. I had done an inventory of my cabooses and most were dull dark red so I decided to spice some up with colorful ones. I already had decals for Rock Island, Rio Grande and Union Pacific railroads. Some of the cabooses were masked and silver can sprayed on and then clear sprayed to protect decals. I made and added track power pickups to allow lights in most cabooses.
see page 7, posts 70 thru 75, for 8 newly painted or converted cabooses
https://ogrforum.com/...ra-027-layout?page=7
Your probably have seen most of them from 2021
Charlie
@breezinup posted:This car was part of an uncataloged set no. 31983 Southwest Freight Set that was sold by Hobby Lobby in 2004. Pretty odd that someone at Lionel picked this offbeat rail line for a car! No doubt it was an inexpensive set and there aren't many of these cars left around, at least partly because, given the source, many of them were probably discarded as the young owners trashed them or lost interest. The car is probably pretty rare, and certainly unusual.
By the way, the "Made in China" era is still with us.
As Tom correctly writes above, if one enters 6-31983 into search bar, worthpoint comes up, and has a picture of the boxed set. 4 canisters were also included in gondola.
Here's an oddity--a LIRR B-40A baggage car made from strathmore paper that I got from eBay.
Back in the days of families heading to the Island for summer vacations they would run whole trains of these dropping them off at the stations with resorts and picking them up empty for the return trip.
Homemade Transfer Caboose.
Made from junk flat car and junk caboose with home made hand railings.
Railing from 16 ga copper wire.
Charlie
Homemade Rio Grande Railroad Bobber caboose. Made from a junk Lionel SP type caboose shell. Picture showing the end walk ways and steps now painted Silver
Charlie
Homemade with original black end walk ways and steps, shown with a Lionel Rock Island 8078 Boober caboose
Not a car, but an engine. I was the self-apointed Information Minister of the Isle of Denial and was unceremoniously invited to leave after coming in possession of contraband BNSF diesels. In my defense, this wouldn't have happened if one of the AGHR kids, David Jeans (member and grandson of founding member Lowell Jeans) had not become a conductor and engineer at BNSF Railway Company.
In my path to redemption, I stole a great idea from an HO modeler who was also in denial. I took a new, scale-wheeled MTH UP1995 diesel and had it repainted in traditional CNW F-unit freight colors, swapping the 1995 numbers to 9519. One thing I did change was to modernize it by have "Zito" yellow used instead of standard yellow. The decals are Microscale for a CNW F-unit and fit rather well (thank you and shout out to CNW modeler Patrick Hansen). Quite frankly, in hindsight this might have been a better choice for UP1995 instead of the lightning bolt variant. My next CNW project will be a pair of SD80's. CNW had some on order before the merger.
Here are a few photos.
Unpacked after it arrived back home.
On the club layout. I need to install the couplers.
This is not a car, it’s a truck. It’s not rare, unique, or unusual, but it is sentimental. It is the "Lionel Train House" Panel Truck! That Menard’s offered in 2017.
I think they did a great job with the truck, which also brought back many memories of French’s Lionel Train House, of which I actually only visited once.
There are three separate threads on this truck. The first two were on the Barn Yard Find, and the subsequent auction on eBay. There were a lot of firsthand accounts of visiting the "Hobby House" that was run by Jack French. Both threads are from 2014. We are so very fortunate to have this Forum that maintains the historcial records, includng pictures.
Cool Train Shop Truck Found | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum (ogaugerr.com)
I had not commented in those threads, probably too busy with work.
The next thread is from 2017, where Menards announced the release of the Panel Truck.
I did post a comment on that thread, but my Brewman1973 handle was lost, so I am reposting my comment here:
I stopped in the store exactly one time, in June of 1974. I had just finished my freshman year at the University of Washington and, on a lark decided to drive back home to Tacoma on the old Pacific Highway instead of I-5. I had driven by the store a number of times, usually at night, so it was never open. You would be hard pressed to miss the store since there was a real train engine in the front yard! There was a rather small show room in the front of the store, I did not have much money, but was able to acquire a full circle of Super-0 track, a 1961 catalog and a 6415 Sunoco tank car. I asked Mr. French if the car had a box, he needed to go to the back room to check, several minutes later he came out with the prize! He was getting up there in age and had a bit of the shakes, so he needed some extra time.
I was able to find this picture of the store, I believe it had been listed for sale a few years ago. The bricks have been painted over, it was a stunning building when it was the original brick color, the sign looks the same, except for the name changed. The windows in the front would have been the showroom. The old Pacific Highway (aka US Route 99) has expanded and is closer to the building than before. I understand that there was a layout in the building and perhaps a living space. Any additional information would be appreciated. Occasionally, I see catalogs with French's name stamped on the cover.
The old Pacific Highway between Seattle and Tacoma has some iconic establishments, including dance halls where some of the big local bands played. The Spanish Castle was one of those places.
http://pnwbands.com/spanishcastle.html
Thanks for reading. Best, Dave
@Choo Choo Charlie posted:A coal car with load.
Is that Mr. Yuck on the side of the car? I haven't seen him since Second Grade!
Here is a work caboose that was painted and labeled for Rio Grade Railroad
The Rio Grande work caboose is shown below with the Lionel Tie ejector. A work caboose is needed to hold a load of ties to feed the Tie ejector.
Charlie
A pair of Marx 24129 Lehigh Valley hopper cars. Bought the top car at York; all the lettering is sans serif. Bottom car is "stock" Marx, "Lehigh Valley" uses a Burlington Art Deco font while the other lettering is Roman.
A 2 car lithographed bullet train. Runs on S gauge track.
My "Bullet Train" - purchased at Kadena AFB, Okinawa, Japan. a friction powered floor toy.
Best Wishes
Don
Here is a Marx SOU 51100 Autoloader car that needs light weight plastic cars and/or trucks for sure. I still run some Marx 3/16 inch spade coupling light weight Marx cars with my Marx 999, Marx 666 and Marx 1095 Diesel engines.
Charlie
A custom painted 6419 work caboose. Done well enough to look like a factory paint job.
CBQ
Great Job. Looks a factory job for sure and I love those handrails on the ends of the car. I like to repaint cabooses of all kinds an get rid of all those dull red ones I have.
Charlie
Flat car with Circus Wagons
Charlie
Two custom Christmas cars. First car is a Christmas coal hopper. Second car is a Christmas light transport car with illuminated bulbs.
Lionel Erie 3444 Hobo and Sheriff operating car. This car always gets lots of attention on the layout and the Hobo wins the race ever time.
Charlie
Here is my car configuration for Woody in my Christmas train.
A pair of American Flyer 3212 Borden's butter dish milk tank cars. Top car is restored with Lionel 2800 series trucks and a blue frame and lettering like the original. Bottom car is restored with MTH passenger car trucks and the same lettering as on the preserved (and sole survivor) car 520 at the Illinois Railway Museum.
TOFC (Tabasco on Flat Car) load. "Lionelville Fire and Rescue" is an appropriate road name.
The bottle is a Christmas ornament sold at Target.
Norton,
Your Strasburg look great. Pennsy cars are great donors for Strasburg projects. Thanks for the lead on decals, too.
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